The Average Joe in Jerusalem: Once Again...

Once again, I get to go to one of the most beautiful places on earth. Sorry I didnt post about this earlier but the internet at Ein Gev (where we stayed) wasnt very good at all. Oh how I love this place, one of my favorite places on earth, everytime I go there I dont want to come back to Jerusalem. This time we got to be there for two days extra than last semester (last semester we went there friday to monday, this semester thursday to tuesday) I went on a ton of fieldtrips, hung out at the beach, chilled with the students and had fun with my fam.

Thursday March 22nd
We got to Galilee around 4:30, I went around talking with the students and seeing them again, it was really great to see them all again, its really boring around the JC without them. Then we went to a fish restaurant (we being my and my family and the students) I got the fish, I went for it! It was actually really good fish and I had fun being a normal 13 year old and playing with the fishes eyeballs! :)

This was the fish

Friday March 23rd
Today I started off by going on a field trip with the students. First we went to Gamla, which is super cool and it was at one point a Jewish city and is now ancient and abandoned. The reason why it is significant is that it had synagogue in it and like it says in the scriptures He went about teaching in the synagogues all throughout Galilee and this city is in Galilee, so I might have been in a place where Jesus was at one point! Then we went to Hippos which was at one time a Gentile city it was also very cool. Then after the fieldtrip I ate lunch and went on a hike with the students. We went to some random place with a bunch of water falls and it was really cool and also very pretty and long! After dinner we had a bonfire and we talked, played games, and just had fun by the big fire!

Saturday March 24th
Today was sabbath so we had church but instead of having church early we had it at 2:30 pm! I did some Journal writing and I read the story of Christ walking on the water, and then I read it ti the girls while chillin in one of the really comfy hammocks that they have at the place.

At 2:30 we went to church before church we stopped at Yardenit, it is really cool going to this baptismal site and there are people baptizing themselves while we are there! Chruch was really great and it was very uplifting and of course the view from the house church building is amazing so that makes it better!

Since I am learning the Arabic letters right now I decided to take a picture with the Arabic sign of the story of the baptism of Christ

Brings back so many memories!

Its just a normal house that was eventually dedicated and is now a chruch building

The rest of the day I just chilled, read my scriptures and played games with the students and the fam.

Sunday March 25th

Today I went on another fieldtrip with the students, I went on this same one last time, I love it so much! We first went to Mt. Tabor which is believed to be the site of Transfiguration. Then we went to the church of Nain which is where Jesus raised the Widow's son from the dead, it is a little chapel but it is still special to me. Then we went to Megiddo which is the site of Armegedian where the battle for the end of the world will be! We then went to Gan Ha-Shalosha which is a hot spring and this time it wasn't pouring rain so we could actually see towards the bottom of the water it was so much fun! After the field trip we came home and ate dinner then I had the classic tea party that we love having, we steal a ton of tea packets from the cafeteria and we go over to someones apartment and have a tea party!

Monday March 26th

In front of the church of Annunciation

Today was our free day I was expecting to get my beach time but nope! Our family had to go somewhere. We ended up going to Cana, saw a few churches there, then we went to Nazareth and went to the church of Annunciation which was really cool and it was made to commemorate where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she was going to bare Jesus. There were paintings/ mosaics done by a lot of different countries of Mary, I was disappointed by the one that was done by the U.S. We then got Shawarma (which is like the best thing ever!) and we drove away from the wonderful town were Jesus grew up! We then drove to the Sea of Galilee and we got to go on a boat onto the sea!! We didn't get to be out there very long but we had a little devotional on the boat, we talked about the walking on water and the calming of the sea. We then drove home back to Ein Gev and we ate dinner, then i had another tea party and we had FHE and we played night games.

The cool door at the church

Inside the church

"The Jesus boat"

I got to give some of the devotional, the calming of the sea :)

Tuesday March 27th

Today I went on another fieldtrip, like the best fieldtrip ever! We first went to Hazor which is the largest Tel in Israel, it was really cool and it was very large! A Tel is a mound of dirt that covers what used to be older cities and you uncover them and you find the city. We then went to Tel Dan (look at Photo #28 in the back of your Bible) which was really, really fun. There was a Pooh Bear tree, and "Paradise" also there is a stream that is one of the 3 main bodies of water that leads into the Jordan River. But it wasnt much of a stream, they were huge! Rapids. They gave us like 45 minutes free time so we walked through "Paradise" and we climbed the Sycamore tree and we had fun in the Pooh Bear Tree. After Dan we went to Ceaserea Phillipi, which was also really cool (look at Photo #26 in the back of your Bible) We then went to Nimrods castle which was made in 1100 A.D. and was a fortress to protect the trade route to Damascus. It was really fun to go all over it, a ton of the actual fortress was still there. After being a Nimrod we went to a lookout that at one point the Israelis put armed forces there to look over Syria and all that was going on, you actually could see a very vast amount of area. After the fieldtrip we ate dinner and then finished packing, said goodbye to some of the students and...